As it is entirely a solitaire exercise, one of the things you should understand about Fields of Fire is this: The instant you sit down at the table with it, you are playing the game. It’s not like other ‘tactical’ games where you spend 20 or 30 minutes setting things up and then begin play. In Fields of Fire, ‘set up’ is part of playing the game.
Once you’ve finished placing terrain cards and potential contact markers on the table (or on the virtual table, in my case), you’re out of god mode and smack into your game-role of company commander. You have to receive your mission (read the scenario), develop a plan to accomplish the mission (figure out how to hit the victory conditions), task organize to fit your plan (fill out your force roster) and then structure tactical controls and comms to help keep your guys organized and in command during mission execution.
Map with tactical controls
Certainly, you can fudge the whole process. But why cheat yourself? A large part of the game’s ‘simulation value’ is built around coming up with a plan, and then seeing how well that plan handles events as the mission unfolds.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the better your comms plan, the better chance you stand of keeping your guys under control. At times, everything will go wrong. Radios have an annoying habit of not working very well. Field phones are more dependable, but not very flexible. The orders that you anticipate will be most urgently needed in a crunch should be backed up with pyro signals.
The first mission in the Normandy campaign is an offensive mission with the goal of capturing two objectives in the third row of a three-row map. The 4 x 3 map configuration seems compact enough, and the 10-turn mission length seems generous. But the bulk of the company’s leadership is inexperienced (including the CO) so I’m sure some hard times ahead will alter those perceptions.
Simple plans are the best, right? Task organization for this trip into the bocage is straightforward. First platoon is my assault element, bolstered by the presence of the company’s experienced (line quality) First Sergeant. Second platoon is the primary fire element and includes some weapons attachments. It will be kept under tight control by the CO himself. Third platoon is the reserve element and includes the XO. It’s mainly organized for an assault role and can be used to either respond to the unexpected or follow-on assault the secondary objective as needed.
The smallish map should be easy to navigate, but all of the appropriate tactical controls need to go in place because you never know what’s coming next. Placement of the phase lines and the limit-of-advance are no-brainers. The point controls require a bit more thought.
One nod to the ‘game’ aspect here is that you get the luxury of selecting where your objective markers are placed. That’s not generally the case in the real world, although I will note that within the context of the game setup your choices are fairly limited anyway.
Note that objective placement can be a bit tricky. Objective cards that are light on terrain may be difficult to hold after you chase away the bad guys. More defensible objectives are also more defensible for the enemy. So you get to pick your poison – keeping in mind that it’s highly unlikely the map will be cleared of enemy contacts by the end of the game.
For this mission I’m keeping the objectives close so both can be covered from the Attack Point. That simplifies movement coordination and fire support and gives me the option of putting a couple of easily understood pyro signals in place to cover a few contingencies.
More on the specifics of task organization and the comms plan in my next post.
